Unprotected sex among US gay men on the rise, study suggests

The proportion of men in the United States having unprotected sex with other men increased 20 percent from 2005 to 2011, according to a federal study released on Wednesday [11/27/13], raising new concerns over the spread of the HIV virus, which causes AIDS.

...Men having sex with other men account for 65 percent of new infections even though they represent only 2 percent of the total population, she added.

The reason for the increase in unprotected anal sex is unclear, but could be because men are increasingly having sex with partners who have the same HIV status as their own in the belief that this lowers their risk of contracting the virus, the study said.

However, the CDC warns that this could be a dangerous strategy.

Men with HIV "might not know or disclose that they are infected and men's assumptions about the HIV status of their partners can be wrong," the agency said.

We will continue to feel the effects of HIV/AIDS education, and general sex instruction, being gutted during the Bush Administration, for many years to come. We can't easily go back and reeducate all those grown adults who missed the message when they were in school. And that policy of sexual ignorance continues in schools today at the Red State level.

I know, the Right Wingers will howl that I'm turning this into a political issue. But that's EXACTLY what it is, because Conservatives already made sexual education a political issue years ago, when they began to underfund and even eliminate it in many schools for ideological reasons. And made ineffective religion-based sexual abstinence the substitute for knowledge and protection.

And I also blame the Internet, a medium that should have been a source for information dissemination. Unfortunately it's just as good at disseminating disinformation.

We even see it here on RJ, guys extolling the joys of barebacking with strangers. And dismissing the risks as overrated, or even nonexistent. When everyone has the podium, bad information will get as much exposure as good information.

And there will always be the gullible who will selectively hear what they want to hear, to satisfy their own personal agenda. So that the continuing spread of HIV among the gay community does not surprise me, though it saddens me.